Bunk House: Before and During

This was the entrance to the bunk house the first time I saw it.  So far we have painted the walls and cabinets, removed the uppers and installed the open shelving, done about half of the trim and generally made it functional with a microwave.  Next week Dan is going to build and install a concrete counter that spans the same length as the shelving and finish the trim.  I will install the woven-wood blind and make a little curtain for the microwave nook.  We are designing the space to be used as a guest house long term, hence the decision to forgo the stove.  Also, it was ugly and I hate to cook.

I'm going back and forth on lighting for this room... I have 2 lights.  One is a very simple industrial-style glass pendant, the other is an over the top black iron / crystal 13 light chandelier.  I really can't choose!  Right now it has a dusty old ceiling fan.

 I didn't get a before picture of the boy's loft.  It's the space to the right of the pony wall in this picture.  It is 6'6" deep by 14 feet long.  The second I saw it I wanted to put 3 little beds in a row, Orphan Annie style.  It's not 100% done, I will post details when it's totally finished, but so far I love this little spot.

Ahh, the luxurious master.  There's my long- suffering realtor, he's in a lot of the before pics.  I forgot how bad that area rug was!  I removed the closet shelves and hung a curtain in front of the hay-loft access door.  Oh!  That reminds me... My sister saw the bunk house for the first time when she came to pick up the boys, and when we walked through the mudroom to the barn she stopped in her tracks, jaw dropped and screamed, "You live in a BARN?  Those are stables!  You are LITERALLY living in a BARN!!!"   Uh... yeah!  What do you think I've been talking about for the last 2 months?  Well, I think she thought bunk house was a figure of speech... but no... it's literally a barn*

Wow.  This picture really makes me wish I had payed more attention in my required photography class in college.  This area is really turning out great, the colors are so much fun.  I can not abide a dust ruffle, so I went with a blue and white ticking stripe fitted sheet on the box spring, try it, you will like it!  Also, I was planning on ordering a flokati rug, but I forgot and we needed to set up the furniture so I picked this little rug up at home depot, saving about 600 bones, so... oh, well.  There are so many fun textures in this room.  I will make sure and get better images when it is officially finished.  We still have to hang my crystal chandelier... I am so excited about that!

*For the record, we are having so much fun!  When people ask how we are doing, I think I am coming across negatively because my friends seem a little bit worried about me.  For example... we still don't have hot water.  We are bumming showers off our relatives, taking them at the pool, or Dan's office... small price to pay for this little adventure.  We are fine... better than fine... really!  Well, another little hiccup... it's 100 degrees today and if you look at the master pic again, there is no ventilation in that room.  The only upstairs windows are across the loft where the boys sleep, so the upstairs of the bunk house is... really hot... we went to church this morning and now we are at Dan's office hanging out.  I don't mind the heat as much as Dan, he's going crazy.  Mid week it should cool back off.  Who cares?  We are on an adventure and getting to know each other better than we ever imagined.  So far I still like my family.

Downstairs Floor

Yesterday morning L caught this little bunny in a flower bed.  That's his thumb in the picture.  He took this picture for his cousins and grandma.   We kept him in my chihuahua's crate, so you can't really appreciate how tiny he is (the boys think it's a boy).  He fit in the palm of my hand, bigger than an egg and smaller than a tennis ball.  He is the softest sweetest thing I have ever held... so tiny and delicate and vulnerable. We have a really bad track record with vulnerable little animals (or... I should say our bird dog, Powell likes to kill things), so our cousin, Maddie is caring for it and feeding it kitty milk with a tiny bottle.  Good luck, Bunnicula!

The downstairs flooring started out a combo of really nasty carpet and really nasty linoleum.  Dan spent days removing it all and mechanically etching the concrete to prep it for staining.

In the meantime I laid these sweet floor stickers in the mudroom, on the diagonal, I'm really good at floor stickers!  Who knew? After pulling off about 7 layers of old linoleum we were bummed to realize that the mudroom and bathroom floors are just plywood over the ground, no concrete.  That explains the mold on the baseboards.  Yikes!  We don't have the time to dig out the floors and do it right, so floor stickers on plywood it is.  Of course we gutted the moldy drywall.  I hate to store art so I hang it ASAP so it doesn't get damaged... looks kind of silly, though.

Alas, Dan's hard work did not pay off.  The floor color, called Tuscan Yellow, was mixed wrong and it went on opaque.  It was bright mustard.  We were expecting a very subtly warm concrete, like what you see in rest stops.  Are we the only ones who admire the floors in nice new rest stops?  ODOT and CalTrans have some sweet facilities!  Actually, the rest stop on the way to Virginia City is really cool, too.

Anyway, oops!  Maybe we should have just lived with the yellow floors... For now the floor is painted white, in the long run we will dig out the mudroom and bathroom floors, poor a proper foundation and lay hardwood on the entire first floor.  Our motto for the bunk house redo has become, "It's a barn."  We mutter that phrase in defeat a couple of times a day.   We have to remind ourselves we just need to get it livable so we can live in semi-comfort while we do a proper reno of the main house.
Speaking of semi-comfort, I am at the laundry mat.  We don't have wi-fi because the only service provider that serves the old farm isn't very... professional.  Hopefully next week.  I would rather have internet than a washer and dryer!  Gotta go... a really stinky guy keeps telling me there is only a minute left on my dryer.  Bless his heart, he means well.